


Where the Heart Is

by merelypassingtime



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Other, mentions of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 03:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16736529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelypassingtime/pseuds/merelypassingtime
Summary: Eddie and Venom find comfort together after an investigation goes wrong.





	Where the Heart Is

Sometimes Eddie wondered if he should have gone into journalism at all. At the time the choice had been easy, he wanted to right all the world’s wrongs, expose injustice, and give a voice to people who needed one so badly. His family had certainly been against it, and even his high school guidance counselor had tried gently pointing out that print media was a narrowing field. He had cheerfully ignored them all and rarely regretted it.

He did regret it on days like this. Days when an investigation had turned up nothing but a string of closed doors and dead ends. When he knew that if he had If he’d been able to pry open a few of those doors, or if he’d avoided a few of those dead ends… Well, then maybe he and Venom would have been there in enough to save the kid…

Venom stayed uncharacteristically quiet as Eddie shuffled into the apartment, flicking on the lights and pulling the door shut behind him. 

Usually the click of the door lifted his spirits, the physical barrier of the door closing away the harsh realities of life, leaving him in his own space, safe but never alone.

In the months since his bond with Venom, the crappy little apartment had improved, climbing from a hovel to a home. It was hard feeling to quantify, especially since really not much had changed. 

It was still the same battered furniture, the same dingy walls, and the same-okay, well the hardwood floors had always been rather nice. But they were even nicer since he had spent an afternoon mopping and polishing them while he introduced Venom to the collection of old vinyl records that had been his only inheritance from his father. 

The windows too had been thoroughly cleaned because Venom loved to look out at the street below, a pastime Eddie rarely joined him in. They also boasted a new collection of potted plants, all inexplicably thriving. When Eddie had wondered aloud if it was the greater light that was helping them grow, and that had even brought his first plant back from the brink of death, Venom had grumbled that it was fear of being eaten, then refused to elaborate. 

Eddie had also finally got around to rehanging a lot of the pictures from his pre-Anne days. She had never been a fan of the same bright, abstract pieces he liked, and their apartment together had been decorated entirely to her taste rather than his. But now those pictures were out again, scattered randomly across the crumbling brick and grey plaster walls, and, even though most of them had been placed to cover holes left by flying debris and goons, that didn’t do anything to stop them from adding their own color and warmth.

It was those details along with a myriad of other little things, differences backed by the weight of a hundred happy memories, all adding up to the feeling of home, of security, and of love. 

Not that it brought much in the way of comfort to Eddie tonight.

He walked past the small kitchen without so much as a whisper from Venom about being hungry and settled on the couch with a mighty flop. Turning on the TV, he barely let the menu load before selecting a program at random from the suggested list, hoping only to find something- anything really- that would block out that last sight he’d had of a small body disappearing into a too large body bag.

It didn’t work.

He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt a tendril, warm and smooth, gently wiping it off his cheek. He leaned into the touch.

**Sad, Eddie.** Venom said, his voice in Eddie’s head clearly not asking a question.

“Yes, love.”

**Nothing more we could have done.**

“Wasn’t there?”

**No.**

Eddie sigh, rubbing angrily at the still falling tears. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t want to be in my own head right now.”

**Okay, my Eddie,** Venom said, and the world went black.

At first Eddie thought Venom had put him to sleep, which would have been a dubious blessing at best given the likelihood he would be facing nightmares, but this didn’t feel like a dream. His thoughts were too clear for one thing, and the blackness around him felt too real, cold and somehow hollow.

“Where are we?” Eddie demanded into the pressing darkness.

A patch of black seemed to move towards him, and he recognized the sensation of Venom engulfing his hand even as the symbiote’s voice answered, **We are in my conscious, since you didn’t want to stay in yours.**

“But this is a place, isn’t it?”

**Yes and no. It was a place, but this is just my memory of it.**

“Oh,” Eddie said, his voice small in the vast emptiness. He wasn’t sure if that made any sense, but so little of his life did anymore he didn’t question it. Instead, he asked, “What is this a memory of?”

**The time I was imprisoned, before Riot and the others found me. I thought you might like the quiet. It was the first time my mind knew what it was to be quiet and alone, away from all other minds.**

As Venom said it, Eddie could feel it with him, the horrible shock of that sudden solitude and the accompanying loneliness that made his soul ache. “No. No, I don’t like it here at all.”

**Me neither,** Venom agreed. **Here, let me take you to my favorite place.**

The world around Eddie shifted again, and for a few endless seconds it seemed like he was falling before a new feeling surrounded him. It was still dark, but now the darkness was warm and close and filled with a low, steady thrum.

“Where are we now?” Eddie asked in a whisper.

**Wrapped around your heart.**

“What?” Eddie exclaimed. Sure enough, as he did the sound in the background skipped a beat and came back at a much faster rhythm.

**Shh, shh. It is fine, I am always here when I am in you. It doesn’t hurt you.**

“Noo…” Eddie said, dragging the word out as he tried to decide if he felt different than usual. “I guess it doesn't. But it's still a bit unnerving. I’d never really thought about where you hung out, I just assumed you dissolved or something.”

**Assuming is for asses.**

“That’s not quite how the saying goes, but it’s close enough.”

**Because you are an ass.**

“Hey, I’m not the one constantly crushing my host’s heart.”

**Not crushing! Protecting. Always protecting Eddie. Our heart is too big and too soft. It needs protecting.**

Touched by Venom’s fierceness, Eddie said reassuringly, “And you do a good job, love.”

**Not good enough, not today. So we will hold it together while it heals, just like we are holding Eddie’s mind with us to help with the sad.**

“Thank you. It does help so much just having you here with me.”

**We are always here in your heart.**

“I know you’ll always be in my heart,” Eddie said, almost surprised to find he believed it. Then, with a smile that felt out of place but good on his face, he added, “I just didn’t know it was quite so literally.”

Venom groaned at the bad joke, but Eddie thought he felt his chest grow warmer, filling with a relief that wasn’t his alone.

It felt like home.


End file.
